Birds of a Feather
by Twisted Schadenfreude
Summary: [AU Evil!PPG & Good!RRB] Some things manage to transcend the usual time/space laws of parallel dimensions.


_**Birds of a Feather**_

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**Down the Rabbit Hole**

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The boy wearing a smirk lives for the thrill.

The high he gets from the adrenaline rushes are what keep him sane, and sometimes he wonders if maybe that's a bad thing, for a superhero.

He masks the glee on his face with a loathsome scowl and a string of curses as he crashes into a building through its glass window. The flying shards dig into his skin deep enough to draw a reasonably alarming amount of blood. He's thrown against one of the interior's pillars, and his back makes a horrible cracking sound as it meets the cement. He ignores the gaping faces and sputters of the office workers, standing up and brushing debris off of his shirt as though he had simply fallen onto the ground.

Butch runs a hand through his jet black hair, and tiny glass fragments fall onto the floor. He breaks into a run before jumping out the hole he had made, a jet of dark green trailing after his flight pattern.

The monster is a giant squid with a wrinkly purple membrane. It swings its tails around and demolishes Townsville's various infrastructures. It opens and mouth and wails terribly, fifteen meters of fangs barred before the cowering masses who run around aimlessly in terror.

He increases his speed until he flies with the force and trajectory of a missile. He's encapsulated in a shell of green energy to protect him upon impact; something that comes in handy as he ricochets straight into the beast's one eye. The squid shrieks and flails wildly in pain piteously, but Butch isn't known to show mercy to monsters. There's an explosion of green flashes and then the ugliest squish sound ever heard resonates for at least the entire metro.

And then Butch stands in the middle of the carnage's evidence –calamari, anyone? – covered in some green gunk he supposes is either blood or mucus.

His older brother yells at him for being brash, for breaking formation and ruining the efficient plan he had so carefully mapped out, but all Butch does is shrug in response. It was a good work out.

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The girl wearing a scowl lives for the feel of power on her fingertips.

She's a slave to Him, her creator and 'doting Father.' He dictates each heist, each attack on the boys, and to a degree, her purpose. "_You exist to destroy the Rowdyruff Boys. You were born to destroy the Rowdyruff Boys,_" his voice, so eerily and utterly unnatural, echoes through her head. It was a lot worse before, when they were children. They were nothing more than broken marionette dolls for Him to control.

His presence has lost its magnitude, and they're given the freedom to cause what mayhem they wish. But none of them, even for the tiniest fraction of a second, has ever thought that Him was gone.

She's subordinate to her sister, the brilliant one. It's Blossom who barks out the orders, it's Blossom who says when, where, and how. Buttercup has locked horns with her many times, but in the end, the older girl always gets her way in their arguments. She manages to make her words sound so much more convincing, as if her logic is endlessly sounder, and it makes Buttercup want to scream.

Blossom knows of her jealousy, and ridicules her for it. "Green really is your colour, Buttercup." She moves in to sock her sister's smug look right off her pretty face with a good right hook, but her sister is faster.

What is she, but a mere pawn?

She takes a twisted satisfaction in breaking the police officer's arm. Her head of cropped black hair shakes as she laughs maniacally at the huddled crowd that trembles before her. It pleases her that the teller obeys without question as she orders him to put the money in her sack. She relishes in the fear she holds as control leverage over the citizens who are as weak as ants in her eyes. It's one of the only times she can ever pretend she's her own.

She enjoys her time while it lasts. It's only a matter of time before the stupid boys get there.

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The boy wearing a sheepish grin lives for others.

All his endeavours, whether ridding the City of Townsville of a gargantuan monster, saving citizens from a burning building, defeating villains who threaten the peace of his beloved home, or rescuing a cat from a tree, are done with equal effort and goodwill.

Boomer is just that sort of guy.

His face is filled with so much welcome and concern that the people of Townsville instantly feel safer the moment they see him on the premises, regardless of the giant robot rampaging through the block. He's their golden boy, their knight in shining armour.

When he's not helping out a sports team lacking a player –no powers, of course, because that would be cheating –or volunteering at the local animal shelter, he reads to a kindergarten class at Poakey Oaks Elementary on the weekends when he can. As soon as he hits 'happily ever after,' it's question time, which is really what the kids are after anyway. "Do you ever get scared fighting the bad guys?" asks a little girl with eyes as big as tennis balls.

"Sometimes," he admits honestly, "but my brothers and I have to face those fears to keep the city safe."

"Have you ever killed anyone?" asks a young boy who wears a baseball cap in the very same manner Brick used to.

"No. And I hope I never have to."

Once the kids have had their fill, he asks them a question before he leaves. "What do you guys want to be when you grow up?"

There's a chorus of doctors, fire-fighters, veterinarians, princesses, and one kid yells 'A hero, like you!' at the top of his lungs. The boy seated directly in front of Boomer stares at him pensively before answering.

"I want to be happy." Boomer gives him a wry, distant smile.

"Me, too."

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The girl wearing a bubbly smile lives for attention.

She's certain that if she had been born into any other life, she would have been a superstar. She makes do with what she has, and in some ways she still gets the applause she craves. When she flies into the sky with her sisters by her side, all eyes are on them. She blows her audience below a kiss before tearing into a building.

Bubbles isn't heartless. Truth be told, she isn't exactly evil, either. Sometimes she chastises Buttercup when she feels her older sister is going into overkill mode. Sometimes she begs Blossom to _pretty please with cherries and sprinkles on top_ spare the pet shop when they go on a warpath. Villainy is just a role she plays, and she goes along with it. It isn't as though she's considered any other alternative.

Besides, she figures that she's too stereotypically Barbie-like to be particularly interesting as a good guy. If anything, Bubble loathes to be part of a set. She ensures that she's delineated from her sisters somehow. Blossom is the controlling bitch, Buttercup is the violent bitch, and Bubbles is the one who isn't really a bitch at all; she just so happens to be the cute girl shooting laser beams at a skyscraper's base so that it comes crashing down.

Another perk of being a baddie is the freebies. Well, they aren't exactly free, but at least she doesn't pay a dime for her pretty clothes and accessories.

And so while Buttercup is on the couch, accounting for their loot, and Blossom is her room, maybe brooding, maybe planning out their next hit, Bubbles bustles around the kitchen, softly humming a top forty's song she isn't supposed to know. Her golden hair is tied up in its usual twin-tail style, swishing around as she moves with a sashay in each step.

She's the baby, she's the fragile one, but in more ways than one she's the least broken. That's why it's her unspoken job to take care of all three of them. She's the thread that keeps the torn ends together.

Bubbles is selfish, Bubbles is narcissistic, but Bubbles isn't immoral. Because under all the glitter and dazzling smiles, she's another teenage girl who just wants –no, needs to be loved.

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The boy wearing a stoic expression lives for purpose.

Being born in a lab due to some freak accident can really take its toll on a guy's self-esteem sometimes. Brick may not look it, but most days he feels like an accessory; pretty, admirable, but ultimately dispensable. Life has become just a line drawn from point A to point B to point C, and he can't help but wonder if maybe there's something more for him that he just can't reach.

He stares outside the window of his gifted chemistry class, barely listening as his teacher drones on and on about valence electrons. No matter how many classes he tops, no matter how many girls he has to reject in a week, no matter how many medals of honours he hangs on his bedroom wall, it always feels as though he's missing something.

It's not that he doesn't find himself useful. On the contrary, he knows without a doubt that Townsville would burn to the ground without him or his brothers. The fact that playing the hero seems to be the only reason he exists anymore is what eats him.

He doesn't know if it's him who built that cage.

His teacher, with her sharp grey eyes and years of experience enough to know when a student isn't paying attention, abruptly calls his name and asks a question. He answers smoothly, correctly. He reaps in the rewards of advanced reading.

Disappointed, she goes back to her lecture, leaving him to his thoughts. Brick stares around at his classmates, some faces eager to learn, some absentminded and distant. He envies them so, in their lives of endless possibilities and opportunities. His life, on the other hand, had been written the moment Chemical X had been spilt into his father's concoction. He's the hero, victim of fate.

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The girl wearing a face as blank as a new piece of paper lives for nothing.

The most foolishly optimistic, the type of people who try to see the light in everyone, might try to say 'she cares for her sisters.' But no. Blossom might concern herself in their welfare or everyday matters, but if it came down between Buttercup and Bubbles and one of her goals, then the subject would be up for debate.

That's what makes her the most dangerous out of the three, for some people. While she isn't as wild and unpredictable as Buttercup, the fact that she's so detached from the world makes people fear her. It's because they know that if they ever come face to face with the eldest Powerpuff, their chances of receiving any mercy are slim to none. Blossom doesn't care about the orphans who live in the building she burns down. She doesn't care if the man stupid enough to stand up to her in one of their rampages might have had a family waiting for him back home.

Her pretty face, with those lush lips and unnatural pink eyes emphasized by blunt bangs, remains devoid of any emotion. She's a robot, she's the perfect soldier.

She hates it.

She longs to feel.

Blossom wants to know how it is to cry, to get angry, to gain a sense of shallow satisfaction at the pettiest things. The sadist in her used to deem the screams of terror and sense of complete dominance enough, but at sixteen, she holds witness to the knowledge that there might be something more.

Somebody shoots a beam of red light at her without warning, and she barely manages to dodge. She turns her head to find Brick floating in front of her. She hurtles toward him for the counter attack.

The beads of blood he etched into her cheek are the closest she'll ever get to human.

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_**A/N:** This is a prelude to fairly long multi-chap. BOOM SWAG, I spend my free time writing fanfiction about the Powerpuff Girls. Leave before the gross sobbing commences. But not before I thank you for taking the time t__o read this. Hope to hear what you thought about it!_**_  
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_**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE POWERPUFF GIRLS.** _


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